


ek dhobi

by AllegoriesInMediasRes



Series: Ramayana fics [18]
Category: Ramayana - Valmiki
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Period-Typical Victim Blaming, Post-Canon, WIP, basically all my uttar kand feelings in the mouths of Ayodhya's younger crew, idk - Freeform, or maybe this will be a Oneshot, younger siblings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-10
Updated: 2018-12-10
Packaged: 2019-09-15 14:22:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16934883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AllegoriesInMediasRes/pseuds/AllegoriesInMediasRes
Summary: “Onedhobi. One idioticdhobiwho has more bluster than brains, and the King is ready to banish his wife over it?”“It was far more than just onedhobi!"Ayodhya’s younger children discuss, as rumors spread over Queen Sita’s chastity.ek dhobi (Hindi): that one washerman that started it all





	ek dhobi

“One _dhobi._ One idiotic _dhobi_ who has more bluster than brains, and the King is ready to banish his wife over it?”

“It was far more than just one _dhobi!_ ” Lakshman finally snaps, pushed by Urmila’s jab at his eldest brother. “All over Ayodhya, tongues are wagging about the Queen’s impurity and that they will not accept her. Do you really think so little of Bhaiyya that he would accept one person’s opinion as that of the masses?”

His wife does not reply, instead accepting a now-cold cup of _chai_ from the nearest maidservant. The cup rattles against its saucer in a sharp staccato rhythm.

“Why is it not enough that the god of fire and King Rama declared her pure? What more do they want?” Shrutakirti, the youngest of them all, and still convinced that doctrines of simplicity should be enough for everyone else as they are for her.

“What more do they want?” Lakshman echoes her question, punctuating it with a long sigh. Fourteen years of their lives sacrificed to appease _dharma_ , the last of which alone aged them a thousand years. Kishkindha and Lanka decimated, his father dead of heartbreak, and still fate asks more of them. “On Bhaiyya’s coronation day, he had half the kingdom following him. They would have gladly shared his exile with him. And now they demand that he forsake his wife, to justify their suspicions.”

“There are even worse rumors,” Mandavi finally speaks. She was (interim) Queen of Ayodhya for fourteen years, longer than her sister ever was, and she more than any of them is intimately attuned to its rhythms. “That the child Sita Didi carries is Ravana’s --”

Lakshman chokes at this. To imply infidelity on her part is one thing, but to actually accuse her of presenting her husband with a cuckoo heir?

“Do the people of Ayodhya not know how to count?” Urmila is on her feet at this most outrageous of outrageous claims. “Five whole months passed before the child was even conceived!”

“Then some other man’s bastard,” Mandavi elaborates dully. “If she could take the demon king into her bed, who else might have been there?”

A headache pounds at Lakshman’s temples, and he strides to the window, away from this conversation, away from the manifestation of his sins. If he had not given in to Bhabi’s goading -- if he had been there to protect her, to send his arrows into Ravana’s heart before he could ever lay his hands upon her -- if he had held strong --

Then they would not be facing this right now.

In a way, it is even worse than knowing Sita bhabi was across the sea, on the most impregnable island known to man. At least then he had his bow, his rage, his unshakeable trust in his older brother’s prowess. Ruling a kingdom demands finesse and diplomacy that the battlefield never taught him. He sorely wants to suggest to Bhaiyya that he send an arrow through every tongue that scorns their Queen, but where would that leave them?

(And truth be told, Lakshman is rather afraid of how high that number might be.)

Urmila still looks half-disoriented when Lakshman turns back to where everyone else sits. He cannot blame her. To sleep for fourteen years, and wake up to this Ayodhya? He would have prefered to remain Nidra Devi’s disciple forever.

“Why must this happen now?” she asks to no one in particular, her voice whispery with tears. “Why must jackals cry when the first child of a generation is about to be born?”

“There is precedence, of course, for queens betraying their husbands,” Bharat says stiffly. “Rajmata Kaikeyi’s gracious legacy to us all.”

And Bhaiyya has vowed to marry Sita and Sita only, Lakshman remembers. An unfortunate throwback for those who still remember how his father sacrificed everything at his favorite wife’s urging.

“Yet didn’t Bhaiyya tell us to revere Queen Kaikeyi as though she were our only mother?” Shatrughna’s voice shakes with barely repressed anger, still fermenting after fifteen years. If Bharat had not stopped him, he would have beaten Manthara to death with his bare hands. “She still lives in the palace, after all these years, as one of its Rajmatas.”

“But she is bereft of all love,” Mandavi reminds them. Gently, of course -- they must always tread a fine line where Kaikeyi is concerned. “The world’s love, and her son’s, and her husband’s, and her own.”

“As she should be,” Lakshman gets out through gritted teeth.

“And as Sita Didi will be,” Mandavi counters.

“But she has done nothing wrong!” Shrutakirti bursts out.

Lakshman closes his eyes. “Of course she hasn’t. But that’s not the point, is it?”

Silence befalls them.

“Has anyone told the Queen of the rumors yet?” Urmila finally asks, having given up on knotting and unknotting her hands.

“I haven’t had the heart,” Mandavi admits. “But she’s neither deaf nor stupid. Sooner or later, she will know.”

“But in her condition…”

“Bhabi has survived worse.” Lakshman’s voice is firm with finality. “You do her the greatest disservice if you fail to credit her with enough strength to weather this.”

She _will_ survive this. They’ll figure out something, and Ayodhya will welcome its first heir before the year is out, and Rama and Sita will bring more glory than any before them.

“But coming back to Kaikeyi Ma, I am reminded of something Didi once told me” Urmila says, her indignation now lapsing into thoughtfulness. “Devarji always said that Kaikeyi could have asked him to go into exile herself, and he would have still gone. There was no need to break his father’s heart in the process, and she would have gotten what she wanted for her son.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” Bharat demands. “It was never about my happiness or welfare -- only about demanding that Father write out his love for her in blood.”

“And about ensuring that the blind man’s curse took effect,” Urmila says suddenly, her voice dropping. _“You will die grieving for your son, as I grieve now._ ” Out of the eight of them, she alone was present for Dasharatha’s death, and she alone heard him confess the tale of Shravan Kumar. “ _Dharma_ must always circle back around.”

Foreboding grips Lakshman suddenly: like father, like son? If Bhaiyya should go as his father did, grieving both for a son he never got to meet and a wife he had to exile…

“I spoke with Guru Vishwamitra earlier this morning about what _dharma_ ’s place in all of this may be.” Shatrughna’s tone does not inspire confidence. “And he said that we ought to thank the _dhobi_ for letting us know the lay of the land before the child arrives. If the prince had been born, and there had been a succession crisis, what then? He is of the opinion that Bhaiyya ought not to have taken her back at all, and should have simply cast her off for good in Lanka.”

“Regardless of the Agni Pariksha?” Lakshman’s mouth is dry.

“Agni Pariksha or no Agni Pariksha, no one can ever truly respect a woman who spent a year in the house of another. But understandably, Bhaiyya was -- ah, how did _gurudev_ put it? Oh yes, _sentimental_. Bhaiyya was sentimental after a year of not having her, and at the fact that the exile was just about to end, and now he’s gotten a child in her belly, imprudently early, and it’s gotten everyone wagging their tongues.” Shatrughna throws up his hands in mock exasperation, at the logical conclusion that follows. “Hence why he should have made a clean break, before there was a child to muddle everything up.”

“ _Gurudev_ himself brought you and _devarji_ to Mithila for the swayamvar,” Urmila says, stricken. “If it’s come to this, where he himself is saying so…”

How the world has changed, Lakshman considers, from when he was fifteen and still angry, but also so _sure_ that things could be better, if he worked hard enough. That seems like another era now, an unreal idyll haloed with a golden haze.

“Oh, look at all of us, sitting around and talking about Didi when she doesn’t even know everything yet,” Shrutakirti says suddenly. “Let her hear everything, and until then, not another word from any of us!”

“Kirti --” Lakshman begins.

“Not another word!” The youngest of them she may be, but somehow she still manages to command them all. “She’s had enough taken from her, and in all honesty, she should have been the first to hear of this.”

For once, Lakshman falls silent. He owes it to his sister-in-law, and this much, at least, he can do for her.


End file.
